


you'd break your heart to make it bigger

by TolkienGirl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abstract, Consistent with Jared's comment about 5 years between 15x19 and 15x20, Episode: s15e20 Carry On, Experimental Style, F/M, Finale compliant, Gen, Mythology References, Quote-heavy, a tribute, title from Richard Siken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:26:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27832240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: They have about five more years, which is more than can be said for most doomed brothers.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	you'd break your heart to make it bigger

They keep each other sane.

_The noble size and beauty of their bodies, even when they were infants, betokened their natural disposition; and when they grew up, they were both of them courageous and manly, with spirits which courted apparent danger, and a daring which nothing could terrify. . ._

[something broke between them]

“In mythology, one brother always kills the other, just like he said. I never knew that was Chuck, over and over…waiting for us to come along and live out his version of the story.”

“Joke’s on him. What kind of story are we?”

“A damn good one.”

_When Remus knew of the deceit, he was enraged, and as Romulus was digging a trench where his city's wall was to run, he ridiculed some parts of the work, and obstructed others. At last, when he leaped across it, he was smitten (by Romulus himself, as some say), and fell dead there._

_Romulus buried Remus,_

_You always put me first._

They build a greenhouse the year after Jack goes skyward because, _why not, Sammy? You could grow your own rabbit food_ , and the next thing you know Sam’s trying his hand at eggplant. The crop doesn’t get on very well, but they don’t chalk it up to lack of heroes’ luck or human frailty, they just eat the streaky little things grilled on top of steak-rounds. Dean says steak makes everything better—

[Every story has been told better than theirs, because _they_ kept pulling at the seams of all the scenes, and that fucked things up.]

Sam likes to think he knows the difference between _Dean_ and _Chuck’s Dean_. Or, more to the point, that he knows how _his_ Dean was always himself, fighting against the walls of a prison they couldn’t see. They’re both like that, really. They both keep trying to get out, or get in, or go home.

And twenty years ago, a frightened boy was waiting for hours outside in the dark. California didn’t know what to do with him.

Sam didn’t let him in, then.

Sam didn’t know he had to.

_Cain said to Abel his brother: Let us go forth abroad._

“Easier than I thought it would be,” Sam says. “Putting it all behind us.”

Dean squints at him. “And you’re the broody one.”

“Oh, like hell,” Sam says, and then—wryly triumphant—“See? Comparing—”

For all that pretended optimism, they have their little despairs. The vengeful spirit in Manitowoc that misses Dean’s throat by a millimeter with its talons. The weird case of strep that takes Sam out for a week and drags old hallucinations out of their cages. The weight of a gun, some days, is just too heavy.

_I know where I am at my best._

[Dean’s Sam never forgets that November 2nd means Jess, too.]

[Sam’s Dean is the one who still knows how to laugh.]

_And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and slew him. And the Lord said to Cain: Where is thy brother Abel? And he answered, I know not: am I my brother’s keeper? And he said to him: What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth to me from the earth._

“I’m tired, Sammy.”

He’s forty-four years old.

They keep each other sane. The ghosts in the bunker don’t need to be chased away with iron and salt; they need to be managed, which is the same thing some people call _grief_. A lot of people died in here, a lot of people walked out and never came back. They go to Lawrence in the summertime; the family they saved in 2006 is many states away now, and there’s no more disquiet in the old house.

Tree’s still there, though. The crooked one in the photograph that Sam dreamed of when he had no idea what was running through his veins and whispering behind his eyes.

“There’s nobody who remembers us here,” Dean says, quiet. “I used to…I used to keep track of Lawrence as the place I’d lived _longest_. Four years. Barely a chip off of anything, now.”

“But we still ended up in Kansas,” Sam points out. “Winchester roots go deep, I guess.”

“Deeper than God’s,” Dean says, which is the first time he’s referenced _all that_ in ages.

_Don’t you_ ever _think that there is anything, past or present, that I would put in front of you._

“Hey, Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“You called Eileen lately?”

[I wish we could leave them in a state of unknowing, let them die of soft old age without realizing that death had even come from inside their weakening bones. But it would be cowardly, no matter how beautiful, to close on the yellow circles of lamplight, the smell of old books, the dust of the open road. Don’t all these things belong to them, no matter where they go? Don’t they have to try for something else?

Don’t they have to keep trying?]

_Did I ever tell you? That night that I came to you at school? You know dad hadn’t come back from his hunting trip? I must’ve stood outside your dorm for hours. Because I didn’t know what you would say. I thought you’d tell me to get lost or get dead. And I didn’t know what I would’ve done….if I didn’t have you._

Sam’s Dean can’t live or die alone. It’s one of his endearing vices. Sam’s Dean was never allowed to be a child, so he had to become his own man. He made it about halfway there.

His brother—

_It’s OK. I’m here. I’m not gonna leave you._

They weren’t like other people. God made them to be his playthings; he used to try to sit back and watch them dance. But they weren’t like other playthings, and then it was over, and they were still there.

_You and me._

Sam’s Dean needed to let him go. He knew he had to die to do it. He tried that out a hundred times, dying. He’s all right with it now. He likes to think what a future holds for Sam. He’s thinking of this on a winding road, in the graveyard dirt, in the coffin, in the kitchen, in the part of heaven where they make you wait for hope.

_I need you tell me it’s OK._

Dean’s Sam was just Sam, his own Sam, and then a Sam beloved by other people. On and on, those who’d known him when the world did, and those who were born and raised hereafter. That’s a good life for a boy who could have been king of hell twice over, and yet chose to stay on earth.

_You can go now._

[I hope you know, they’re going home.]


End file.
